Not Your Typical Earth Mother Mama

byDeborah PenneronMarch 15, 2015

I am going to tell you all straight up …

I am one of those moms who surrendered to allopathic medicine with the birth of my children. My daughter liked it in my womb and might have stayed forever if I had let her … It was the safe peaceful place in her world.

She was born almost three weeks after her projected due date. A reflection of her mama’s need to believe she could control the arrival of this new little being who was about to change everything!

2 days of labor … no movement towards out of my womb, so she was removed via c-section the evening of the second day.

From then on, she was “OK! I’m here now! Look at me!! I’m amazing!!” Once she was out she was all in. Curious, checking it all out, engaging everyone she met.

My son on the other hand was my “surrender baby” … With his birth, I allowed myself to surrender to the process. I had an epidural … the best choice ever for me because I’m not a fan of pain I am not used to. It throws me off balance and I needed to be somewhat balanced and surrendered for this birth to go well.

At one point there was a moment of absolute trust as I watched my blood pressure numbers go way down to an unsafe place while in labor with my son. If it kept going down, they would all be scared and I’d be absorbing that fear … as it was, there was NO fear here for me.

The very humorous anesthesiologist with a lovely British accent was sitting at my head off to my right making me laugh. Always a good quality in a doc!

“No worries,” I thought. “He’s right here. He’ll just give me something to bring it back up … (It didn’t hurt that I knew what that something was.) He won’t let me die. In the mean time let me just feel this place!”

So nice to be out of my own way and in trust for this tiny space in time. Yes, I had a little help – well maybe a lot of help- from the epidural drugs and the sensation of floating away that helped cultivate that trust for me in those moments. I’m a fan of help for these landmark moments.

I was [and still am] grateful! It is a sweet space, that space of total trust no matter how we get ourselves there. Total non-resistance is not a place I experience often, and the drugs in the case of my son helped me get into the vortex, into alignment with the process of birth.

The thing is, if the anesthesiologist hadn’t given me the drug that brought my pressure up, I wouldn’t have known. I was in no pain. No fear. No resistance. The sweet place of allowing. The path of least resistance for that moment.

The gift for me in this particular experience is the powerful feeling frame of reference for trust, for all is well, so that in the times when it’s out or my control and I am in recognition of that out of control, I can choose to be in the space of non-resistant trust.

It is also for the times when it’s out of my control and I am not even close to recognizing that it is. I can bring myself, even then, a little closer to the allowance of whatever it is.

At some point you just have to surrender and stop fighting the way of it all. Really. And then stop judging it all. Stop fighting it all. Stop judging it all. And then allow the falling into that sweet space on no resistance.

Until the next round. Because there’s always a next round. It’s the way of it.

My son as it turns out , is very laid back. He does what needs to be done, doesn’t twist and turn about it. He just gets whatever it is done and does what makes him feel good. He pushes the borders of apathy. Perhaps a story for another day.